Helene Funke (1869/1957) Retrospective at Lentos Art Museum Linz

Sunday, 06 May 2007 03:03

Linz, Austria - With the exhibition Helene Funke the Lentos Art Museum Linz presents the first museum retrospective of this Austrian painter, who is regarded as one of the most important pioneers of the international avant-garde.  With a total of 125 exhibited works, primarily paintings, watercolor and graphic art, and with the publication of an extensive catalogue, the Lentos Art Museum lays a foundation for making the previously largely undiscovered work by the Austrian Helene Funke accessible to a broader public for the first time. In addition, the exhibition in honor of the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death is also in keeping with the programmatic trend of promoting women artists and new discoveries in the Lentos exhibition program.  On exhibition until 11 September 2007.

About the Artist
Helene Funke belongs to the generation of women artists of the early 20th century, whose work has still not yet been commensurately honored today.  The painter, born in 1869 in Chemnitz, set out from Munich in 1906 to join the "wild ones" in Paris, and moved to Vienna in 1913, where she remained until her death in 1957.  Her inner migration during World War II and her reclusive life contributed to the fact that she is largely “unknown”.  At the same time, however, the life of this loner, of whose oeuvre a significant portion was destroyed, lost in fires or disappeared, is only fragmentarily documented and thus remains largely enigmatic.  The artist’s art critic Jorg Lampe recounts of Helene Funke that she was always serious about her art: Her art studies in Munich, the long stays in Paris and her travels through France, leaving her family, relinquishing all the securities of bourgeois life all suggest that Funke preferred the lonely life of a nomad to that of bourgeois structures. (Cf. Helene Funke, article by Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller “Helene Funke – vergessen und verschollen”, p. 12)

About the Exhibition
The retrospective of this "classic artist of modernism", comprising 125 works, impressively shows the life work of the artist in the field of tension from late Impressionism, Fauvism, Classical Modernism to its successors.  Work groups from the turn of the century to the 1950s offer an overview of continuity and transformations in the development of characteristic styles.  The exhibition offers insights into the previously hidden creativity of one of the most important women painters of the first half of the 20th century, who was involved throughout her life in various associations of women artists.

“Helene Funke was not only inspired by manifold influences, she was also and especially an artist who was internationally present in certain phases.  Like Kubin, she spend the greatest part of her creative years in Austria and set out on the path of international Modernism in her youth.  Her life and work were confronted with the new art historical currents of the late 19th and early 20th century.  She was a contemporary witness to these most important discoveries of the avant-garde, experienced Fauvism, Cubism and Expressionism close up in the centers of their development.  The end of Klimt’s Jugendstil, Japonisme, Fauvism, the Secession in Vienna and Neue Sachlichkeit, all of these influenced Helene Funke and formed multifaceted artistic focal points.” (

quoted from Helene Funke, article by Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, “Helene Funke – vergessen und verschollen”, p. 15)

Her Work
Only a small part of Helene Funke’s work is found in public ownership and museum collections.  Five paintings and thus the largest number of Funke paintings in Austria belong to the Austrian Gallery Belvedere, which also owns the major work “Die Träumende” (1913).  The Belvedere has made its entire Funke holdings available for this retrospective. With “In der Loge” (1907), “Drei Mädchen” (1915) and two drawings, the Lentos Art Museum has other important works.  In Chemnitz, the city where she was born, there are a total of twelve Funke works, by far the largest collection, even though the greatest portion of her paintings, drawings and graphic art works are owned privately or by galleries, or still remain undiscovered.

Loaned Works
The retrospective that has been made possible through scholarly support from Univ. Prof. em. Dr. Peter Funke and Mag. Tamara Loitfellner, is curated at Lentos by Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller and enhanced with loaned works from the Austrian Gallery Belvedere, the Leopold Museum Vienna, the Vienna Museum, the State Museum of Lower Austria, Art Collections Chemnitz, art dealer Hieke Vienna, and from 30 private collectors and 10 galleries.

Catalogue
A first representative catalogue is published for the exhibition with about 150 color illustrations, 224 pages and introductory articles by Elisabeth Fischer, Peter Funke, Julie Johnson, Tamara Loitfellner, Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, Sabine Plakolm-Forthuber and a preface by Stella Rollig.

Visit Lentos Art Museum Linz - Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1, 4020 Linz - Website : www.lentos.at